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'TURNHOUT 2015 replaces HOOGSTRATEN'
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news - 21/01/2016
TURNHOUT 2015 replaces HOOGSTRATEN  -  Belgium

dogs breeders dog pictures by Karl Donvil
Hoogstraten 2016 becomes Turnhout There is no greater horror for a committee than cancelling a show only a few weeks prior to the show itself. Judges are booked, planes and hotels reserved, dogs entered and paid for and the hundreds or bigger and smaller things to do. That almost happened to the Royal Kempische Kynologenclub of Turnhout. Their yearly CACICB show always takes place in the auction halls of Hoogstraten and was a big success last year with 2377 entries. As every year the halls were booked again for the 42nd edition of this year. Only, a couples of weeks prior to the show the owners of the halls decided that the show could no longer take place in the auction halls. The committee was suddenly facing a big problem. Fortunately they found big empty printing factory for rent in the industry zone of Turnhout. It meant a lot of work to get everything ready. The heating in one of the halls was broken for example and a lot of cleaning was required, but they managed to get everything ready and turned the warehouse into comfortable show halls. The place to be was easy accessible and there was plenty of parking around. Unfortunately, probably an indirect result of all the confusion was that the number of entries dropped dramatically back to 1526. Not bad maybe, but compared to the previous year...a loss of 850 entries! It is far from sure that the very same halls will be available next year as they are for rent on long term or for sale, and if that is the case it is doubtful that they can have them for a weekend. That means that they have to continue looking for a new place for the show. Fortunately there is more time and there is a chance that the city of Turnhout will offer a solution.

It seems anyway that the committee is confident enough to draw up and publish again a provisional list of judges invited for their show of 2017 in this year's catalog. That was their splendid and innovative idea of last year. In the catalog was also a list of the ring stewards. Good, very good, but I wonder why their addresses need to be published too? With the privacy rules in mind I don't think this was such a good idea. I would have preferred a statistic with the nationalities of present exhibitors. The list of the judges, on the other hand, was offering all necessary details. They were listed as usual in a day by day schedule, but in the back of the catalog was a second list were they were listed by alphabet with their breeds per day and then one more time with their totals per day . I don't see the use for this, at least not for the exhibitors or the visitors. They were 25 all together and represented 10 European nationalities, 10 of them were Belgians and 8 of those 10 were only judging one day. Saturday was a quiet day with only 682 dogs to judge. Most judges had a relaxing day. Mr.Scott Alistair from the United Kingdom had 63 entries including 45 Golden Retrievers. He jduged on Saturday only. Also worth mentioning were the 21 Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers for Mrs.Ingrid Kuycken. Probably a lot of owners were there to test her opinion. She also judged one day and the Nova's were her only breed. Best scoring on Saturday was Mrs.Rose Hastings from Ireland with 74 entries, all shepherd breeds. Her husband Colm, was judging too. He had 69 dogs on Sunday. He was the 3rd best scoring judge of the show. Together they proved a good choice with 207 dogs. Mr.Kelly Anthony was also coming from Ireland. He had 39 French Bulldogs. Second best scoring judge was Mr. Liimataini Jussi from Finland. He judged 90 dogs from group 9, companion breeds and finished his weekend after 117 dogs. The Top judge of Sunday and of the weekend was also coming from Scandinavia. Antonio Di Lorenzo is his name. He took Goup 2 dogs for his part, no less than 101. That means that Saturday was quiet with 27 dogs only. Mr.Staf Van Den Bosch is from Belgium and he judged Dobermanns and Boxers. Along with 44 Rhodesian Ridgebacks he was well occupied on Sunday with 80 dogs in total. Mr.Peter Van Montfoort was invited on Sunday only to judge the Great Danes all varieties, enough for 39 specimen and from the 49 dogs for Mr Joren Wesseltorf from Denmark, 41 were Bernese Mountain Dogs, the 3rd most popular breed of the show.

Best In Show judge was Mrs.Rita Reyniers. She is from this area and was a successful Afghan Hound breeder before she started her judging career. She had to place all the group winners but I will limit myself to the 3 best. Her 3rd place went to a dog from Argentina, at least an import from there. The Dachshund Cosmos Ag Von Nordor was presented by his Handler who came also from Argentina. He will help to start his career but return soon to his country. Cosmos will stay in Belgium with his new owner Mrs.E. Kockelbergh. Cosmos is only one year old and he is a smooth Standard. He met Mr.Laurent Heinesche twice in the ring, once for the BOB and once for the BOG. No surprize that one of the 44 Rhodesian Ridgebacks would end up high in the finals. But Mr.Van Den Bosch's choice became runner up to Best In Show. Mafinga Hombarume is a 17 month old male from Holland, entered in Champion Class and listening to Mrs.Laura Rump. Mr.Vitor Vega from Portugal showed him the way to the Finals. Best In Show was a gallant whippet bitch, owner of a most romantic name "Ch. La Belle Hélène Da Roseira Brava" and indeed she was a fragile beauty coming from Portugal, crowned BOB by Mrs.Gabriella Veiga from Portugal and honored with BOG by Mr.Laurent Heinesche from Luxembourg. 20 Whippets were entered. Bell Hélène was bred by Paulo Coelho from Portugal, not to be confused by the famous writer. That was a little more than 3 years ago. He is now co-owned and living with Bart Scheerens and Leona Dams from Belgium.

Let us hope that the committee finds a long term solution so that we will keep coming to this famous show and let us also hope that they will again have a nice entry of far above 2000 dogs. Enter your dog with no worries, the club will always have a worst case scenario at hand to comfort its exhibitors.



Text, results and photos: Karl DONVIL





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